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Paris officially threw its hat into the ring on Tuesday for the battle to host the Olympic Games in 2024. The French capital faces tough competition.

Paris, which failed in bids for the Olympics in 2008 and 2012, joined the US city of Boston, Rome and Germany's Hamburg as candidates for the Games in 2024, 100 years on from the last time the Olympics were staged in the French capital.

Bernard Lapasset, chairman of World Rugby and future head of the bidding committee, said he wanted Paris 2024 to "innovate, smile, move and win" in a ceremony announcing the launching of the candidacy process.

Bid-backing Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo invited all Parisians to show their support for the French capital's initiative by gathering along the banks of the river Seine later Tuesday.

After the disappointment of being beaten by Beijing and London respectively for the last two Olympics, French officials are leaving nothing to chance this time.

Tony Estanguet, France's triple Olympic canoe champion who will be one of the bid leaders alongside Lapasset, played down reports that Paris was already the favourite to win.

"The race is over on the final day and the moments leading up to that serve to build confidence and increase power," Estanguet said.

"Don't count on us to put ourselves out there as favourites. We won't. We have a lot of work ahead of us."

Experts in France have already proposed how Paris could manage the games, with beach volleyball suggested for the parks below the Eiffel Tower, the football to be played at the Parc au Princes, and the Invalides Esplanade suggested to play host to the archery competition.

On the financial side, French organisers say the cost will be about €6 billion ($6.8 billion) and they will get a big chunk of that from the IOC.

Bids must be officially submitted by September 15 this year and the International Olympic Committee will only make a decision at a congress in Lima on September 15th, 2017.

The campaign will be long however and other cities could still enter.

The Azerbaijan capital, Baku, which is hosting the first European Games, could soon make a pitch, Olympic officials said. The Qatar capital Doha is also considering a move.